The Card To My Heart
by Non Fat Tofutti Rice Dreamicle
Summary: With Mulder gone, Scully is left with confused emotions, a new partner and the miracle of life. How does this affect her?


Title: The Card To My Heart  
  
Author: Non Fat Tofutti Rice Dreamicle  
  
Rating: G  
  
Category: MSR, Scully's POV  
  
Spoilers: None but some referencing to events of Requiem, Within and Without.  
  
Summary: With Mulder gone, Scully is left with confused emotions, a new partner and the miracle of life. How does this affect her?  
  
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Twentieth Century Fox in association with 1013 Productions and Chris Carter. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
Feedback: Will be loved and cherished send to mulders_sidekick@hotmail.com  
  
  
  
The footsteps of her new partner faded into the distance and she looked again at the card that had been placed in her hand only moments before.  
  
What was the intent behind it? She hardly knew the man that entered her life in the worst of circumstances, yet he sat there and showed compassion towards her. Did he feel sorry for her, or was it genuine concern?  
  
She hated lying in hospital beds - alone. It was the one time she could truly stop and reflect on the effects of her life and ask those important questions no one ever liked to ask, never mind answer.  
  
She examined the scribble inside the card.  
  
'Its not who wins that counts, its who gets the worst beating. Doggett.'  
  
Simple. Effective. She fought back the tears that threatened to flow.  
  
'How could I have been so stupid' she said to herself under her breath. She turned towards her bedside table and placed the card, lying face down next to a jug of water. She stayed on her side but snuggled to get comfortable and pulled out a leather bound journal from under her pillow. It wasn't very often that she wrote in the book but now and again she felt the urge to write out her thoughts, as if to try and cleanse them, make sense of them.  
  
She took off the lid to her fountain pen and began to write.  
  
'Doggett' she said harshly as she wrote, as to assert herself. 'He reminds me of myself when I first entered the office in the basement. Fresh, clean and unable to see past the realms of science, or in the case of Doggett - the Law.' Meeting Doggett had made her realise how far she had come since then and how much she had seen.  
  
Her thoughts shifted to Mulder ever so easily.  
  
'All that time he was trying to protect me and in the end it was him that needed protecting.' She thought sending Skinner might have been enough but now she knew better. Mulder's loss was hitting her hard but she couldn't imagine how Skinner felt. Skinner was obviously blaming himself; one could tell from his actions - he was completely out of character. 'Trying to restrain him from saying something foolish in front of Doggett was difficult enough. I felt what he wanted to say but Kersh's warning was always at the back of my mind. How was I going to be of any help to Mulder if I wasn't in the Bureau.'  
  
She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments and this time, the tears won. She suddenly opened her eyes again but didn't wipe away the couple of drops that had rolled down her cheek. She didn't like the visions that came to her when she shut out the world.  
  
Mulder had been her dreams many times before. Now he was in her nightmares. She saw nothing but torture and pain - nothing to help comfort or ease her loss.  
  
In a strange way, she felt the slightest bit of déjà vu. 'New Mexico', she whispered.  
  
Again she thought Mulder was gone - dead even, but he came to her in her dreams and reassured her that all was good and that he would return. She remembered that dream so vividly because it was almost like a haunting and so unusual for her to have a vision like that. How she wished for one now - 'A glimmer, a sign of hope, is that to much to ask for?'  
  
It was an unselfish plea she was wishing on behalf of two. Was it too much to ask for the return of the father to her child? Fear began to fill her body. It didn't happen very often and she hated it when it did.  
  
'Will I have to bring this child into the world alone?' This one thought kept playing through her mind like a stuck record and each time she tried to suppress it. 'I don't wasn't to cross that bridge yet'.  
  
Finding out about her pregnancy was a mixed blessing. 'Its always the same, when you find out you can't have something, you want it even more'. She remembered saying that to her mom a couple of Christmas's ago and here she was - pregnant. 'I've gained a child and lost a lover', that was to much for even her to bear thinking about and again the tears began to form and there was no defence for them to break through. The pen stopped.  
  
It took a good few moments for her to compose herself again.  
  
From somewhere, she found the strength to pick up the pen again and put it to paper. 'I'm going to have to keep quiet about the pregnancy, only Skinner knows. Doggett suspects something but he's not in the frame yet.' She knew what she was afraid of. If anyone found out, especially Kersh, it would be the perfect excuse to take her off The X Files and how was she going to look for Mulder then, with many resources taken from her.  
  
The smallest of smiles appeared on her face, 'might be tough explaining the weight gain in six months time'. She wondered for a moment how Doggett would react. There was a natural dislike towards him yet she a strange kind of respect for him at the same time. He easily fuelled her dislike for him when he tried to manipulate her and drop her guard when he interrogated her in their first encounter of each other.  
  
Again, a smile could be detected, 'I didn't hold myself back', remembering how she threw that cup of water over him. Yet she had let her hard exterior crack in the arms of Doggett. At that moment, she realised she couldn't do it alone. She was reluctant to let Doggett in. She was not the kind of person who went looking for help. She would rather find Mulder on her own but that was no longer the sensible option. 'I endangered my life and the life of my child through my own stupid ness', and she didn't want to do that again in a hurry.  
  
She placed the lid of the pen back over the nib and together with the journal, slipped it back under the pillow. She placed her left hand over her womb, there was already a strong bond there, that no one would even dare to try and break. She held off the rapid felling of tiredness that was consuming her for as long as possible but it was a losing battle. The lids of her eyes gradually fell and she slowly drifted out of the conscious world but not before having one last thought for Mulder.  
  
'I will keep you alive in my dreams'  
  
~* The End *~ 


End file.
